We’ve got another of our fantastic uber themed websites this week, taking us to Furze Down School in Buckinghamshire. A SEN school focusing on communication and interaction, Furze Down features one of the latest examples of our modern, accessible themes. It really does manage to capture everything a school website needs, from relevant information at the very top through an intuitive menu system to a large, glossy slideshow to really get a feel for the school.
Furze Down is certainly a non-traditional school, featuring a small selection of just over 100 pupils, but it manages this with aplomb, garnering Outstanding Ofsted ratings at its most recent assessment in 2014. It stands to reason that such a school would need a great website, and we were more than happy to deliver.
Probably my favourite part of the website is the tiled buttons at the top. These stretch and adapt to fit your screen size, and their iconography is intuitive but basic. It really is a great and novel way to set out a menu, a far departure from the all-too-common list of links. I really like how the areas of the pages are defined using blocks of colour as well, rather than harsher lines.
For its clean lines, modern approach and clear attention to the needs of its pupils, staff and parents, Furze Down is our Website of the Week!
Welburn Hall School in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, is a SEN boarding school catering to a wide variety of children from ages 8 to 19 years. It goes without saying, therefore, that this isn’t your typical School Jotter primary website.
The theme itself is nice enough, making good use of the school’s colours and particularly nice use of the gallery feature to show off a slideshow of images from the school. It’s really easy to get a sense of the school’s ethos as a caring, rural school for some of the more vulnerable members of society.
What I’d particularly like to draw to people’s attention, though, is the site’s accessibility options. These are available as an optional extra on most Jotter themes, but are surprisingly rare as far as implementation goes. As basic as they are, the abilities to increase text size and switch to a high-contrast display are undoubtedly lifesavers to those who might struggle to read the standard-sized text. The change only alters the body copy, the the normal usability of the site isn’t affected – an elegant happy medium between design and accessibility.
We’re very proud of our work with SEN schools, and being able to provide these bespoke services to Welburn Hall really does demonstrate the versatility of the School Jotter platform. It doesn’t matter what your requirements are, whether you’re a rural, residential SEN school or an inner-city primary, we can help!
